Samsung Electronics Co’s contribution to smartphone camera lens supplier Largan Precision Co (大立光) is forecast to increase significantly this year, after the two firms settled a legal dispute over patent infringements, Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) said in a report last week.
Samsung’s contribution is forecast to account for 7 percent of Largan’s total revenue this year, compared with about 1 percent last year, Yuanta said in a note on Thursday.
In addition to its front-facing camera designs for Samsung’s Galaxy S10 flagship smartphones, Largan is also expected to win more contracts for the South Korean brand’s rear-facing cameras in the next few quarters, it said.
Samsung on Wednesday revealed a trio of S10-series handsets ahead of MWC Barcelona, the largest mobile device event in the world. They feature triple-lens rear cameras, in-display fingerprint sensors, foldable screens and 5G technology.
Meanwhile, Xiaomi Corp (小米) unveiled its new flagship Mi 9, which is powered by Qualcomm Inc’s Snapdragon 855 chip and features 48 megapixel triple-lens rear cameras.
Overall, the newly released models reveal a clear upgrade trend for this year — including multi-lens cameras, in-display fingerprint readers and wireless charging — which would benefit selective component leaders, CMB International Securities Ltd (招銀國際證券) said in a report on Thursday.
“On top of this, we are excited about Largan’s launch of high-end products ... and look forward to the launch of its ‘secret weapon’ in the second half of 2019,” Yuanta researcher Nicole Tu (塗景婷) said in her note.
Tu did not specify what this "secret weapon" was, but said it is being developed in cooperation with smartphone makers and would help drive up Largan's average selling price (ASP) and gross margin (GM).
“We anticipate this ASP/GM driver will not be launched until late 2019, because this technology night require design changes for adjacent components as well,” Tu said.
Largan chief executive officer Adam Lin (林恩平) in October last year said the company was developing “black lenses,” which use a black coating to cover the front camera lens.
Companies in the Android camp, such as Samsung, Huawei Technologies Co (華為), Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp (歐珀) and Vivo Communication Technology Co (維沃), are expected to launch their new flagship devices in the second half of this year, which would drive demand for Largan's “secret weapon” and other high-end products, ensuring it maintains its industry-leading position, Tu said.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the
RSS